Now, with a new session underway, the discord is mostly resolved and the legislation to allow special districts to collect a voter-approved tax on recreational marijuana sales - one that lawmakers inadvertently repealed in May - is poised for easy passage.

“We have a new solution,” said Senate Majority Leader Chris Holbert, R-Parker. “It’s a different concept, and I think that you’ll see that it will have significantly more support than what we saw in the special session.”

The issue extends from a measure lawmakers approved in the final days of the 2017 session. Senate Bill 267 eliminated a 2.9 percent tax on recreational marijuana in favor of an increase in the special sales tax on pot from 10 to 15 percent. But the change mistakenly prevented special districts like the Regional Transportation District and the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District from collecting their portions of the tax.

Advertisement

RTD told lawmakers that it stood to lose about $560,000 each month under the new law. SCFD - which includes the Denver Zoo - said it was losing about $56,000 a month. Other entities across the state were out thousands of dollars.

The idea now being considered emerged in the special session, but the Republican leaders who rejected the initial version said there is one major difference: The bill’s advocates secured support from a majority of lawmakers in the split chambers before its introduction Tuesday.

It “is the kind of work that should have been done before the governor called the special session,” Holbert said. “Not pointing fingers at him. Maybe he thought it had been done. But in reality, it had not.”

Gov. John Hickenlooper’s office said it had support for the measure the first time, but the issue became clouded as he engaged in a war of words with Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Canon City, who called on the Democrat to cancel the special session.

Grantham said the two sides are past the hard feelings, and Hickenlooper said he is deferring to the General Assembly to find a solution.

“There were reasons why we did everything we did,” the governor told reporters Tuesday. “Not everything you do works. And certainly you learn more from failure than you do success, as my grandfather used to say.”

The push to fix the measure reopened questions about the constitutionality of the original bill and whether lawmakers needed voter approval to reinstitute a tax under the Taxpayers Bill of Rights.

State Sen. Bob Gardner, the bill’s sponsor, said the new version will punt the decision about whether to seek voter approval to the special districts.

“The reality is that we never could have fully and finally decided whether it was OK with (special districts) to reinstitute the tax,” he said. “So I think what’s different about the bill is that it makes it clear it’s your call - it’s between you and your voters.”

No vote is required under the bill, but Gardner said he expects some districts to go to voters in a referendum.

And the Colorado Springs Republican also anticipates “opponents who shout loud and long that TABOR has been violated” but he said it adheres to the state constitutional requirement that voters approve all tax hikes.

“I think authorizing special districts to seek a tax doesn’t violate TABOR at all. And what they decide to do about it is, again, their call,” he said. “I that feel we have an obligation as the General Assembly to fix problems that we cause unintentionally.”

House Democratic leader KC Becker of Boulder said she expects Democrats to support the bill.

“It’s important for my communities to restore the funding to SCFD and RTD that they had voted for all along,” she said. “It’s important - it has an impact on people.”

The sentiment is echoed by the districts whose revenue sits in limbo. Deborah Jordy, the SCFD executive director, said: "We are hopeful that the proposed legislation – which requests no new taxes or tax policy changes of any kind – will be something all lawmakers can support as we move through the process."

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story